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Topic: Online Card Games Thread (Read 13109 times)

It's funny but Magic is basically "Stalemate the game". In other TCGs you will attack as often as you can because you want to destroy his creatures or his life points.Magic the Gathering however transforms very soon into a starring contest. The one who blinks first is the most liekely to loose. Because the way Magic works it is not advised to make the first move. You are literally forced to wait until you draw the card that gives you the safety to attack without any risks. Why? Because in Magic you cannot target monsters, only the opponent directly. This means your opponent decides against which monsters you have to fight and no matter what you do, he will of course always choose monsters to hurt you the most. Since you can also block a single monster with as many monsters you want, the could easily overcome your strongest monster with simply putting all his defenses on it. Because of this single rule, neither player will make their first move unless they are 100% sure that they will not loose somethign valuable. That's also the reasonw hy Magic is the slowest of all TCGs. You have rounds full of doing nothing. Of course you can say "but they lay out their cards, that's doing something." Well, yeah, not really, you do this in other card games too additionally to the action. MtG is the oldest of them all, that's why their rules are "outdated" compared to modern card games. However, it is also so strategic deep for the same reason, since it is so old it had much time at its hand to put new ways of strategy into it.

But then again, it still is a slow paced waiting contest for whoever looses patience first and attacks.

Btw, if you couldnt tell already by the text above, I love Magic. Because as stupid as this system sounds, it gives players a safety haven against players with a better collection. Even if your opponent has the overall better cards, he won't risk making the firt step, giving you time to prepare. You don't get crushed in two rounds like in other card games.

Remember though, the ONLY things that cannot choose their targets whatsoever are creatures... and even then, that's only with direct attacks. Creature ABILITIES can typically target whatever you want within the given type. Spells/enchantments/artifacts/abilities/whatever generally just target whatever you want, though they usually specifiy a type (choose any one land, choose any one creature, whatever, there's all sorts of choice variations). You have plenty of choice.

Aggressive decks are plenty possible in this... you just have to know what you're doing. Even with the non-targeting of creature assaults, it's never quite that simple. It's not meant to be about choosing which creatures to attack; it's about choosing which ones will DO the attacking, and also about just how you're going to back them up and foil your opponent's defenses. A bit of logic can let you figure out how to give your opponent few options, forcing them to block with the creature that you specifically want to kill off; in other words, by doing that, you have in fact just chosen your target instead of letting your opponent do the choosing. One of my favorite parts of the game, that. I love manipulating opponents into doing stuff; I'll often make the first move because of this, since manipulation is something I'm bloody fantastic at. And sometimes taking what seems to be losses on purpose is exactly the way to do this.

Also, if creatures could always directly target other creatures, it'd be boring.

You're not supposed to attack with your strongest monster every time, yet you can still HAVE a strongest monster and a strategy built around it.

That all being said, yes, it is the slowest TCG, but I've never seen "lack of aggression" as the reason behind it. To me, the reason behind it is the very slow buildup of mana, which is also dependant on the cards drawn. You also tend to just plain not draw cards all that fast. I think this is why, in Hearthstone, you just plain get an extra max mana point every turn no matter what. But in Magic, it's part of the cards; you have to not only wait to draw lands, you have to then wait to fill your hand with more spells. This has always irritated me, but I cant deny that it DOES work in the end.

But it's also definitely nice to have much faster TCGs available to play, because Magic really is indeed just WAY too slow for some players. I, personally, just have yet to find a fast one that I really like. I mean, Hearthstone is okay... but I don't play it very much. It gets a bit too stale. Beyond that I just haven't found anything. Irritating.

There was a card game called "Duel Masters" which was designed by the same guys behind Magic but with the intend for a faster paced and more casual friendly system.The whoel thing was basically Magic but with a refined system and probably for a younger generation. There were soem rules that I prefer on Duel Masters over Magic but in terms of strategy Magic will beat it any day. but honestly, Magic beats every TCG to that, soooo no surprise here.Anyway, the main reason why Duel Masters is faster paced is that Mana is not dependend on specific cards anymore (lands). instead every single card you had in your hand was potential mana. Cards could b turned around (some magic cards could do the same, dual creatures) and on the bottom you had asmall colored number that indicates the amount of mana it gives. The basic set and the first expansions after that featured only cards that gave one mana for a specific color. later there have been combined cards that gave mana for two different colors. I think they intended in the beginnings to make cards that give more mana but I've never seen a card that could do that. They probably scrapped the idea in terms of balance.

The other major difference to Magic is that they removed the life point system. instead you die in one hit. HOWEVER, both players start with five shields. Shields are cards that you put from your deck upside down on the field. If a shield is destroyed, the player can put the card in its hand. Some cards have special effects that trigger if they have been a shield that got destroyed (shield trigger).Additionally to that, not every creature can block, only creatures wit the ability "blocker". Most blockers cannot attack however, similiar to what walls are in Magic.Creatures can attack other creatures, however onyl if the target creature is tapped 8meaning it used either special ability or attacked last round). Cards have only one stat, attack, which means the stronger card always wins. This saves the time for c alculating health into account and also wipes more often the field from monsters.The game is more simple than Magic but that makes it also a lot faster and easier to play. They implemented later a lot of the abilites they had in Magic (which makes sense since they are fromt he same company) like multi-colored cards or the ability to bypass enemy defenses. One of the best expansions were the one where they introduced evolution. Evolution cards worked only on a specific monster type on the field but then you had astronger monster that could attack immediatly (no summoning restriction).

It was a very cool card game but it never came close to the success of Magic.

Basically Magic the Gathering as online game. they had this before but it wasn't very popular except for hardcore players for mutliple reasons. It wasn't free. That's not entirely true, the client was free, the cards just weren't. You either had to buy cards in the store for real money relating to the current market value of cards. People who know printed TCG very well, esspecially MtG, will know that buying specific printed cards can be very expensive.Magic Duels is now finally the free variant of the game, its engine is based on the "Duels of the planeswalker" game series they released once each year. Peopel who own these games know that they are very well designed in terms of gameplay but (except the last game) lacked a real deck builder, you had pre-defined decks with some minor card customization options. I haven't played Magic Duels myself but i believe it removes the deck restriction and is in its core more true to the real MtG. the reason why they suddenly release a free online TCg should be obvious. With the rising tide of online tradign card games there has been created a huge market that you can profit from. Also the interest for real TCGs gets lower since you can have your daily fix on card games faster and cheaper on the internet. Real hardcore fans will of course stay, but if you want to make big profit you have to increase the market. I think for people who want the MtG experience without the need of buying real life cards this is a good replacement.

Pox Nora can be seen as the "ancestor" of Duelyst if you want to put it like this. it features similiar mechanics but is a LOT older. The first version was released around 2006 and was previusly owned by Sony Online Entertainment. 2011 it was closed down until 2014 it was sold to Desert Owl Games and rereleased with a better marketing system. Similiar to Duelyst it is a cardgame mixed with boardgame mechanics. Each player has runes (cards) that he can play. Cards can be only played in casting range which is first near your shrine. Your shrine is a giant building that generates Nora (mana) for you and has to be protected. If it falls, you loose. To play cards you have to pay the Nora costs, stronger cards cost more just like in any other game with a mana mechanic. To get additional Nora each turn you can capture Nora fonts that are present on each map. Your enemy can do the same but if both players stay in the capture range of the same font, the font is negated for both. Capturing and holding fonts is a very important aspect of the game and if you cannot hold the position you will probably loose the game.I could descripe stats and abilities of cards but the problem is, Pox Nora has TONS of these. So I will put it simply to give a basic understanding. Every card can be a champion or a spell (and some other minor cards like equipment which basically also counts as spell). Champions have different movement lengths, attack ranges and other stats. Additionally every champion has abilities, the most basic ability of every champion is an attack. It's importnant to know, the attck counts as seperate ability and can be different from each creature which means it can also have different effects. Additoonally to the attack a champion can have one or more spells or other special abilities. And some champions can also have passive effects on them that are either pemanent active or active when a certain condition is met.When a champion dies he leaves a Nora globe worth half his initial Nora costs in its spot. Both players can collect the globe by moving with another champion over it. This is important to know because a player that lost a champion can still manage to get half the costs back and with this not losing advantage.Champions can only be placed aroudn the shrine or captured Nora fonts. Spells can however be casted in cast range. Cast range is generated by shrines, fonts and even champions. Everything outside the cast range cannot be targeted, so you cannot snipe a creature next to the enemy shrine if you have no creature nearby.Every rune can be used multiple times however with a limit. When a champion is destroyed or a spell played, the rune goes into "cooldown" which is basically the graveyard in other games. After a number of turns you get the rune back to your hand. This allows unlimited use of runes.

The game is very complex and needs a lot of tactical awareness at all time. Therefor I see Duelyst as the "casual" version of Pox Nora which is easier to learn and master. There are 8 different factions in the game that belong to either the "good" side or the "bad "side. Each fation has additional to its runes a special ability that affects the game. For example the undead faction has lower cooldowns on their runes, meaning they can "reanimate" dead champions faster. You can also mix two factions as long as the faction ratio is 50:50. If you mix two factions, you get a weaker version of the special ability of both factions.

The game is really interesting and worth to check out as long as you are not afraid of deep strategic games with a lot of factors and stats to keep in mind. I had a lot of fun with it and will probably pick it up again soem time soon since a new set has been released recently.

Shadow Era! *rabble rabble*

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Match making, expansion model and what gameplay mode the developers favor is always the killer argument for card games imo... when it's a f2p focus, then match making can totally break constructed quickplay, especially when you constantly spew out new card expansions (which raises the price of entry for quickplay constructed exponentially for new players). Best example of how badly you can hug this up is Solforge, in their infinite wisdom, the only way you can play draft daily is by playing online and winning something a new player will never, ever manage due to broken MM. If you are not good at those draft matches (And how could you if your card selection is based on what you WANT to have in YOUR constructed deck, and not what you need in the Draft match), you will also not get any rewards for it. So it's an eternal spiral of salt, and the reviews on steam are proof how well this works out for the devs.

Nearly all f2p games with constructed mode have this problem, albeit in more or less severe form. Many f2p games will add massive entry barriers for the game mode they should actually promote (and that is draft/arena) and focus on constructed ranked instead, which is gonna be misery and pain for new players with no decent card selection. Especially when there aren't that many new players to actually be matched against.

So Imo what is a "good" card game mostly depends on how and when you play it in it's lifecycle... and what game mode the developers shove in your face for "free" play AND how the reward system is designed.

I need to take a longer look at Solforge sooner or later to fully formulate my rant on that btw ;p It has, imo, the absolute worst new player experience of any card game I ever tried. And this is a collection of issues, MM, expansions, booster pack prices, quest rewards, interface and even starter deck design. Everything is made with the sole purpose to punish you if you are a new player. And punish you so hard you either stop playing or start paying. But sadly for the devs, nowadays we live in a world of steam reviews.

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The problem with Solforge is indeed that new players don't have a chance. That's their own fault, you could get daily rewards from offline plays but they removed this with the arrival of the new client. Since than older players stand on the barricades to fight for the return of the AI match rewards. i hope they will come back but I doubt it. They somewhat are stuck int he thinking that if you give soemthing easy away for free then no one will buy the premium stuff. if this would have been the case they would have run out of money two years ago. I made several suggestions int he Solforge forum to improve the experience for newer players, we will see if they consider it or not. The game itself is very good but with the current system they kidn of ruined it for new players and old players alike.

Plus some of the later campaign modes are really hard because they use special rules and the campaign is currently the best place to get soem of the best cards of the game (Forgeborn, Imprisoned Heralds). Especially the battle against Cercee is unfair. Every monster that deals battle damage to the opponent is immediately destroyed. I'm currently stuck ont he Gauntlet quest that I need for my armor deck. You can play only one card per turn instead of two.

Played the campaign - Char level 11 and won my first 7 Arena wins failed at enemy 8 though..

Have to say, it has a pretty fair and fun starting phase, quests only work with online games or campaign/arena, but so far have not seen any "win" requirements. For 3 wins you get a card and 15 gold btw. No idea if that is finite or not, but that is a neat goody for winning and not overpowered. Card pack costs 100 gold

Something that makes constructed a bit weird - cards level up abilities the higher your character level is. And depending on your own character CLASS you get themed cards for that class (though you can craft them)

Crafting costs are OK I guess? I am at 750 souls and barely did anything, could in theory craft cards I need, if I knew yet what I need ;p

We'll see where this one goes, the campaign is fully voiced and quite fun btw for the 20 chapters that it lasts.

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Talisman is actually a board game but for some weird reason Humble Bundle featured it once in a card game bundle so whatever. In Talisman you play as a hero who seeks the Crown of Command who gives the wielder the power to control others. You compete against up to 5 other players and your goal is to reach it first and then use it to take over the other players. Each palyer selects a character at the start, each character has different abilities and stats. All characters have strength, craft, life, destiny and a gold coin. The players roll a die and move their character accordingly on the board in any direction. On each field they draw a card. Cards reveal the encounter on your field, this can be a monster, an event, a person or an item. You fight monsters with either your strength or your craft stat depending on the monster you meet. Defeated monsters are collected as trophies or "experience points" you can exchange them for more stats. To reach the final tile of the board you have to "level up" your character and earn the "Talisman" which gives allows passage to the final field. On the last field you have to roll a die to determine if you can overpower the mind of other characters. If you succeed they loose a life point, you continue this until everyone except you is dead. Other characters can still come for you and kill you before this happens however. Okay, to be honest, the game is very complex but also fun at the same time. There is of course a huge luck involvement here. You need luck with your cards and your dice rolls. The game has alot of expansions that mainly add new characters to play and new cards that you can draw on fields. Some expansions also add new ending cards. Ending cards can be drawn before the start of the game to set which ending you play. the standard ending is the one where you collect the crown there are however other endings where you have o fight a boss at the final field or have to collect specific items. A few expansions also add new regions to the game that you can explore. You don't need any expansion however if you play with other people that own already said expansions. They share the expansion simnply with you and you can play them for free. the game itself however isn't.

Havenfallhttp://havenfall.com/https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=703325314&searchtext=Havenfall has currently no game client or anything like that. The game is currently in development I think? There is a kickstarter campaign but I'm not sure if it's for a digital or printed version of the game.You can still play it if you own Tabletop Simulator (which you should because it opens to you tons of cool board and card games FOR FREE after the initial purchase cost). Simply download it fromt he Steam Workshop. Now Havenfall works entirely different than other card games. Instead of building a deck before the match, you build your deck during the match. Both players start with 10 cards as deck. These cards represent their starting resources. They can use the resources to buy new cards and place on the discard pile. once their starting cards run out they shuffle the discard pile and place it as deck. This can happen as many times as the deck runs out. Your deck gets eventually very fat, so you can "trash" cards, meaning you remove them from the game on purpose if you pay the fee.There are two currencies, treasure which is valued in copper, silver and gold, and pixels. Treasure is used to buy cards for your deck. Pixels come in different colors and are used to either trash cards or activate special effects on a card. You obtain pixels by slaying monsters.The goal of the game is to defeat boss monsters on the field. These give you points and the player with ten victory points wins the game.Unlike other card games you don't directly attack. However, you can use cards to sabotage him so you beat the bosses first. The game is a little hard to understand first, more so because the rule book isn'r really well written but it has an interesting concept with a nice twist.

I recently got back to Pox Nora and I remmeber how great the game actually is. There recently has been a new set released but th enewest set is only aviable for real money in Pox Nora (such is life) but every other set is aviable for the ingame currency.The only thing that I don't like about it is the clunky UI (the game is really old and you can see this). To modify decks you have to go to the website, you cannot do this ingame. If you click on the deck manager it will simply open the website for you. That's one of the more annyoing things in the game.The other is, there are so many abiltiies, it is hard to remember all. In every match you start with reading the abilities of enemy monsters. It takes some time to keep some of the more common champions in mind.Since you can take your time and read the abilities ingame it isn't such of a big deal but new players probably will have their "WTF?" moments.still I can suggest this game for people who like deep tatctical games with a lot of different stuff to experiment with.

If you start the game,let me know so I can give you some basic information about it. If you know what faction you want to play mainly it is advised to get the faction avatar. This is not a card but a transformation for your shrine. You can transform ingame your shrine into a hero unit that has good stats but looses soem of the benefits of the shrine (including the ability to summon champions near it).

I was thinking about getting into Pox Nora again, as I played it in my childhood, but after reading some of the Steam reviews I'm pretty turned off to it. Some of the reviews are pretty damning. People are saying it's an extremely expensive cash cow, and now that you're telling me the latest expansion is money-only, that just makes it sound even worse. I might give it a try anyway, for old time's sake, but it's going to be hard to enjoy it when Duelyst is so similar and so generous with its rewards.

I went ahead and tried Elder Scrolls: Legends, because it seemed pretty cool. This Forbes article was calling it a mixture between Hearthstone and Magic: The Gathering, which made it sound like a lot of fun!

Unfortunately, the same article points out a lot of its flaws, which for the most part I agree with.

Actually, one of the things I really like about Magic is the interaction between players that is missing in most card games. Most online card games now are like "Oh you take your turn. I take my turn. You take your turn. I take my turn." SNOOZE, SOMEONE KILL ME.

Where in Magic, it's much more active. You choose what minions you want to block the opponents attacks, and with all the different phases you can always jump in and interrupt what the opponent is doing with instant cards and such. As I said, it's much more interactive, it's less an individual masturbation session and then crossing your fingers and hoping for the best until your next turn.

So I was like "Wow, maybe Elder Scrolls can add some of that!"

Unfortunately, it did not. At least not in any meaningful way. The "Prophecy" mechanic in general just makes the game too luck based for me, which is unfortunate because it had the potential to be good, if it had been a little more original, and a little more like Magic and less like Hearthstone.

« Last Edit: August 07, 2016, 05:56:43 PM by Wingflier »

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"Inner peace is the void of expectation. It is the absence of our shared desperation to feel a certain way."

That's been actually worse when Sony still owned the game. Back then there have been only be 3 or 4 sets been open for players to buy with ingame money, every other set has to be bought with real money. Nowyou cannot buy the latest set but when a new set is released it gets free for everyone.So, it got better, not worse. It's also a lot easier to earn gold, you can get 200 per daily match (two matches against a randomly generated AI opponent) plus 200 if you complete both. You get also gold for a lot of other additional stuff and you can now sell cards for shards and then forge new cards with it ( a feature that many other TCGs have). And unlike other online card games you can trade in this one, which makes it a true trading card game.Peopel that pay real money will still have an advantage but this will always be the case with games like this. You can speed up the process of colelcting cards, more cards mean you have more options to build a deck. A f2p player has only a few options at hand to buzild his deck and that limits him in his strategies, makes him more vulnerable for other decks that have more cards.

Well anyway, like I said I'll give it a try. I'm giving Magic Duels a try too, so we'll see.

As I said, my biggest beef is with these games that progress so slowly and yet give you no chance of victory in matchmaking unless you pay an arm and a leg. At that point I'd rather just play Duelyst because it's so generous, in comparison to the other ones I've played.

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"Inner peace is the void of expectation. It is the absence of our shared desperation to feel a certain way."

That's pretty much true. So far Chronicle and Duelyst are the fairest ones because the basic cards you get are always useful, even in veteran decks. every other game fails this concept, I'm failry sure because they fear that then no one would buy with money (which is rubbish, you just have to give them a good reason like cosmetics and stuff).

Overall Pox Nora has been improved a lot (in terms of balance and new player experience) but they didn't improve the client. At all. It still has the same flaws it had four years ago. sometimes champions don't react on the first command, some ability thumbnails don't show what they do, the ontrols aren't the best (why do i have to right click for scrolling across the map? Why does it not pan when it reaches the edge of the screen?). I wish they did some improvements on that. The only one I see is when an ability refers to another ability or effect, you now see what that effect does (for example when a unit is immune against knock-back it now also tells you what knock-back does, the game didn't do this before). I think the whole client needs a make over but this would take a lot of time (and money) to do and I guess they are not willing to do it or maybe cannot even afford it financially.I still hate it that you have to adjust your decks on the website and cannot do so in the game. That slows down quick adjustments on your deck.

I played Pox Nora little more to see how the rewards are. they are actually very generous, I don't get what people want more.You get 200 gold for each of the two daily matches plus 200 if you can beat both, makes 600 gold.You always have 4 daily quests that give 350 gold each 8some give less but are easier to obtain), this gives around 1500 per day. This means you can get up to 2100 gold each day plus several more for normal games against other players. A new core card pack costs 2100 gold. So you can get at least that one each day. An extended card pack (contains cards from newer sets) costs 3510 gold. You might not get one each day but you can get one every two days at least. You can also save your money and buy a full box that contains ten booster packs (but you pay only for 9). This would take you around 9-10 days and you are guaranteed to get an exotic in the first pack you open, all other packs have the usual chance of 10% for an exotic and 5% for a legendary cards. Rarities include common, uncommon, rare, exotic, legendary.And additionally you can also solve the monthly quests. These can give you 1500-3000 gold each and you have four each month. If you can solve all four, you get 500 shards. Shards are used for crafting specific cards like in other online card games. You can get shards also from scrapping cards you don't need or have too many from.

Now let's get to ranked. For reaching the first rank in ranked you get 1000 gold after the season. And you don't have to win. That's right, you can imrpove your rank by simply playing. Winnign a match gives you two points, losing one gives you only one point, so you get faster to higher ranks if you win. I don't know if this changes in higher ranks like in other TCGs where your first rank does not feature a penality for loosing but in higher brackets you loose points. You can simply reach the first rank by plaing 5 games, no matter if you win or loose.Does this sound unfair in any way? Maybe for players who win because they don't get that much more compared to players that have lost. But except that I don't see why a f2p player has no chance of getting a lot of cards.

I also want to show something from Solforge.I'm currently using this deck for ranked and it is surprisingly very effective.

The deck does not contain a single legendary or heroic card, most cards are easy obtainable and many are included in the starter cards. The idea behind the deck is to spam your abnominations and debuff enemy creatures with -attack/-health. Death Current is used to remove some of the more annoying creatures or to pinpoint a single creature for your debuffs. Additionally Graveborn Glutton and Dr Frankenbaum will eventually wear the enemy out because they do damage to him whenever they or an Abomination dies. Howl of Xith is both a damaging and healign spell, it does 3 damage to the opponent multiplied with your current rank, you also get healed the same amount of hp.Current weaknesses are decks with "Vengeance: Spawn this", in other words, decks that have reanimated creatures. Zimus teh Undying is your worst nightmare because he comes back no matter what you do. To coutner this, put at least one Nanoswarm in the deck because that card removes all abilities and turns him to "Zimus keeps dying". Will you dominate wit this deck? No, because it lacks any heroics, you lack utility. However, you will have an easier time until you reach silver rank. From there upwards it gets however harder and harder.

The terrible animations and production value I could get over, but you can't even run the game in 1920x1080 (or what 99.9% of monitors use these days or higher), much less fullscreen mode.

The gameplay itself wasn't that interesting either. I was stuck with 1 commander at the very start, where in pretty much every other online card game I've played you get to choose from usually 7 or more at the start, without having to pay or play more than a few minutes to unlock them. It was bad...

I found another one called Hex: Shards of Fate. I've been really liking it so far. It plays a lot like Magic the Gathering, with some fundamental differences such as 'hero abilities', classes, and a few new mechanics.

The production values seem solid, it's very enjoyable to play, and the "dungeon system" they've included looks like it could have a lot of potential. I'll let you know as I keep playing it.

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"Inner peace is the void of expectation. It is the absence of our shared desperation to feel a certain way."

I was hesitated to try out Hex because it got alot of negative rebiews. then again, when it comes to F2P games, people jump easily on the "this is bad" wagon because it's easy to start these games (you don't have to buy it) but hard to get into it. people bounce off because they don't understand the mechanics well enough or don't know strategies that work and conclude that the game has to be pay to win. A game is not pay to win simply because you are bad at it, just saying.

Anyway, I will give it at least a try now but I'm already full on card games, so I will just test it.

Another side note, talisman (the board card game) has released a new expansion, Blood Moon. It's centered around a new NPC character, the werewolf. That's the second big expansion centered around an unplayable character, the first one was the reaper where a new figure was added to the board that hunts down players and if it reaches them, something bad (or with some luck good) might happen to them.